With Holyrood due to debate the new National Planning Framework this week, the John Muir Trust has urged MSPs to resist lobbying pressure from those with a major financial interest in sabotaging the wild land map that has been developed by Scottish Natural Heritage over more than a decade. On Tuesday, parliament will debate the latest draft of the Scottish Government’s new draft National Planning Framework 3. A commitment to ‘strong protection for our wildest landscapes’ in the original draft has been removed from the latest version. But since that new version was published, independent experts have analysed the results…

As Scottish Natural Heritage publishes the independent analysis of the public consultation on its wild land map, the John Muir Trust hailed the findings as further evidence of strong public support for the protection of Scotland’s wild land. A total of 410 submissions were received, with 300 supporting the wild land map, including Walkhighlands. As a comparison, there were 472 responses in total on alcohol minimum pricing; 139 responses on reducing the drink driving limit; and 56 responses on the abolition of corroboration. An analysis of the responses carried out by two independent organisations, Craigforth Consultants and Planning Aid Scotland,…

Public backing is needed to secure funding for an ambitious native woodland conservation project in the heart of the Trossachs. The Great Trossachs Forest is one of six conservation projects from around Europe competing in a poll organised by the European Outdoor Conservation Association. The initiative that receives the most votes by 31 March will receive funding worth £25,000. If the bid is successful the funding will help to expand native woodland in the Trossachs through the planting of thousands of trees, encourage the natural regeneration of existing woods, and allow other habitats including wetlands to recover. Funding will also…

A rat on the Isle of Rum is being tagged and its travels round the island logged via satellite in one of the first projects of its kind anywhere in the world. Researchers on Rum National Nature Reserve (NNR) are keen to move closer to understanding the impact of brown rat behaviour on nearby colonies of the Manx shearwater seabird. The work will be carried out by Sean Carlisle, a PhD researcher from Anglia Ruskin University. Rum is owned and managed by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). The island is home to around a quarter of the world’s breeding population of…

A wind farm proposed near Ben Wyvis in Easter Ross would be “an unacceptable escalation of wind farm development in the area” – in the view of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS), which has lodged an objection with Highland Council planners to the Woodlands Wind Farm proposed for a site between two hills near Dingwall, adjacent to the Ben Wyvis massif. ABO Wind UK Ltd has applied for consent to construct five wind turbines, three of 125m blade-tip height and two of 110m blade-tip height, at Woodlands Farm, Dingwall. While of limited impact on views from the summit plateau…

A Scottish Natural Heritage report considering the options for decommissioning and restoring the sites of redundant wind farms has claimed that leaving the windfarm infrastructure in place would be a positive result for recreational interests. The report – which considers options for windfarms reaching the end of their 25 year useful lifetimes, including “repowering” the sites with new wind turbines, removing all evidence of the windfarm and restoring the site, or simply leaving the redundant infrastructure in place. When comparing the advantages and disadvantages of restoring the sites to their former condition, the report claims that leaving the unused windfarm…